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“I also don’t have a vehicle. My engine blew. Bree let me borrow her old bike. Clawdia enjoys riding in the basket.”
“You’re kidding?” I couldn’t help the laugh that threatened as I pictured this strapping man riding around town on an old-fashioned bike with a cat in its basket.
He shook his head.Well.No house, likely no savings after that pile of checks I’d seen him distributing on the video, no truck, possibly no job, and no land because he’d gifted it to me. I leaned in and kissed him, luxuriating in his mouth, his taste, him, for many minutes. “I’ve been scared,” I admitted. “Scared of the connection I felt to you right from the beginning.” I paused, gathering my words. I wanted to say this right. “It scared me. No, it terrified me because I had this sense that if I let you in, I wouldn’t be able to let you go. And I thought…if I could just put you in a box, things would be okay. But it didn’t work. I just kept falling deeper. You just kept busting out of every mold I tried to form around you. And I panicked. I ran in the only way I could. I threw Gage up between us. I convinced myself you were still in love with someone else. And at first that was a relief, but then, then it became a torment.” I halted, forced to suck in a breath.
Travis was looking at me with something like awe. “I understand that fear, Haven. I do. And I want to talk about all of it. I want to reassure you, not just with words but with actions. But right now, I think I need to hear you say it again,” he said, his voice gritty with emotion. “Please say it again.”
I knew whatitwas. He didn’t have to clarify. “I love you, Travis Hale. I want you to know me. I want to tell you about my past, my life, the things that have hurt and all that I was running from. Not to wallow in it but because it’s part of who I am, and I’m proud that I survived it.”
“You should be. You should be proud.” His gaze washed over my face. “There’s a lot I’mnotproud of. But if you watched the video, you already know.” His expression was searching. “That reinventing you spoke of that night on the porch…maybe we can both help each other figure out what that looks like. Together.”
I nodded shakily. “Yes. I want that. But most of all, I want a future with you. I just couldn’t let my mind go there because it hurt, and I feared it, and when I did, when Ido, it starts unraveling out of control to a wedding in a meadow, and children, and all sorts of things you don’t want to know about.” I bit my lip, vulnerability washing through me. If we were going to be blatantly honest…
His eyes danced as he picked up a curl and attempted to push it back, unsuccessfully. “You don’t deal in half measures, do you?”
“No. That’s the problem. It’s why I’ve kept moving. Because when I stop—”
“Haven, I’m kidding.” He smiled softly. “I love you too. I’m in love with you. For the first time in my life. I had to lose everything to figure out what’s important…what I want.” His lips tipped, eyes gentled. “What I’ve had all along and what’s still mine, even when it seems like I have nothing. What I hope to share with you if you’ll let me.”
My heart soared and I leaned in, kissing him on his beautiful mouth. I was ready. Ready to grasp happiness, moments at least, and whole seasons if I was able and life allowed. I wanted my life tocount, not just be an endless cycle of struggle and survival. I was ready to risk, to trust, to stay in one place, to glory in the warmth of summer, to feel the subtle shift as fall arrived, to snuggle into winter, and watch with bated breath for the new green of spring breaking through the cold and the hard.
“You want children?” he asked, breaking from my lips, as if those words had just registered.
“A whole brood of them. I want roots. Noise. Chaos,” I admitted, because in for a penny, in for a pound, and the way he waslookingat me made me believe he’d move heaven and earth to make all my dreams come true.
“Define brood,” he said on a grin.
“Ten. Twelve.”
Travis laughed, the sound filled with joy. “We better get started then. No time to waste.”
I grinned back. “But before that, you have some dating to do.” Because as much as I loved the idea of noise, and roots, and broods of whiskey-eyed Hale boys, I first wanted more blueberry festivals, and antique fairs, and moonlit lake rendezvous with the gorgeous man looking at me with love. I wanted morning upon morning where I woke first and marveled at his slumbering beauty in the still light of dawn. And I was determined to do it without that knot of fear in my belly.
“Oh, I’ll date you, Haven from California. I’m going to date the hell out of you. No one will have been dated harder in the history—”
I planted my lips on his and he laughed against my mouth as he swooped me up in his arms.
And in my mind, the future appeared, and it was incredibly, brilliantly bright.
Epilogue
Travis
Three Years Later
The breeze rustled the trees, the scent of ripened fruit sweetening the air. I looked out to the horizon, where the first wash of lavender spread across the sky, casting the water a deep purplish blue. A smile tilted my lips as I raised an arm, wiping the sweat that had gathered on my brow. It’d been a long Saturday spent digging in the dirt.
“Hey, handsome,” my wife said, coming up behind me and encircling my waist. “How’s my hardworking man?”
I turned, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and kissing her temple, careful not to rub my sweaty, probably dirt-smeared face in her hair. “Filthy,” I said.
“Don’t I know it,” she murmured, raising her eyes suggestively. “That’s how we ended up in this predicament.” She smirked, running a hand over her swollen stomach.
I grinned. Damn right. She was due any day now. It was a boy. Naturally. We’d named him Ryder. Pride swelled. I was going to have a son.
While I still had a regular job—the town had voted and generously decided to keep me as chief of police three years before, even after I’d made public my manifesto of shame—Haven and I wanted to accomplish the work of getting her nursery turned over for the changing of seasons before our little guy made his grand entrance. It was an all-hands-on-deck weekend at Haven’s Gate, Plant and Garden Center.
